Friday, May 15, 2009

Another lab update and more good news...

It's funny...I've become so accustomed to getting daily labs from BB's clinic that it's an almost unimaginable wait to have my blood drawn on Monday the 11th and not have the information until Friday the 15th! And yet, that was the case for a lot of my data.

I called SH's office to get the all important numbers: M-spike, IgG, and CRP to see if I'm gonna be sick or not.

Good news all around.

M-spike is now 0.63. This is about an 85% reduction from diagnosis and almost 90% from start of therapy. My expectation is now that I will be in complete remission after my second transplant -- so barring anything really unfortunate happening, I should be cancer free in about three weeks. Then I'll have an additional course of chemo plus thal and dex afterwards just as a "good bye and good riddance" kick to the face.

Most people would stop treatment now, but BB's treatment is only half over. It's aggressive, but it will be the difference between remission and cure, I think.

IgG is now 1083. This is so normal it's not really worth tracking any longer. This, too, is about an 80% reduction from diagnosis and about 90% from start of therapy. I suppose it will go lower still, but normal is 700 to 1400, so I don't expect it to drop too much further. There simply isn't that much cancer left in me.

CRP is 3.9, which is still low enough to permit therapy to continue -- although this was Monday, before the tickle in the throat (which persists, but I think with some luck I may have caught it early enough).

Going to celebrate with some steak from Lobel's this evening...and a very nice bottle of wine.